A Place for Everything

Those following these blogs may remember my car was broken into by someone determined to steal an old ratty Jansport backpack filled with classical music Xeroxes. The window finally got fixed, but now I needed a new backpack. I found a Jansport backpack and bought it quickly without thinking. But now I have buyer’s remorse.

The old backpack had one outside zippered pocket and one main compartment. This one has five. So everyday as I arrive at class, I spent way too many minutes fumbling through each compartment: “Is this where I put the recorder? Where is the homework folder? I’m sure I put my Memo book somewhere.”

The solution is obvious. Pick one compartment for each type of thing and put it in the same place. Every day. Every time. As Maria Montessori so wisely said, “A place for everthing. Everything in its place.” I wish she could be my personal assistant.

So much wisdom there. Not only in terms of organizing your life so things are retrievable and dependably where they’re supposed to be, but in the larger picture of understanding everything. When someone’s behavior goes against the grain of my expectation of behavior, it feels “out of place” and disturbing. When I can locate it inside a recognizable and dependable pattern—even a negative one— things feel better.

Wendell Berry once said, “Order is rest.” Maybe that’s why I love music so much. It is the orderly progression of sounds that soothe my soul and create meaning to a day that carries its share of chaos. What disturbs order rattles the psyche.

My chaotic front room awaits my cleaning and it’s not that I don’t enjoy sorting and filing away. It’s all the things that have no obvious place or could be in two different places or would have a place if I had room in my small house. That’s what drives me crazy.

I jotted down a few other thoughts on a piece of paper and stuck them in my backpack. I know they’re in there somewhere… hold on a minute…

Shifting Sands

Like Kennedy’s assassination, all San Franciscans can tell you where they were during the ’89 earthquake. What I remember the most was the sense of being betrayed by the very earth I stood on. What I always assumed was solid ground, dependable and unchangeable, suddently wasn’t. It was a disconcerting feeling and it took some 6 months before I settled back into the (illusory) surety of a dependable ground under my feet.

As I repeatedly say (in a variety of ways) in my classes, the brain needs two things to thrive— repetition and variation. The former to mylenate the synapses, lock the learning in and make knowledge dependable and retrievable, the latter to grow new connections and feel alive with new learning that is fresh and exciting. It’s the continuous conversation between the known and the unknown, the solid and predictable and the fluid and the surprising, the routine and the novel, that makes life interesting. Part of the art of living is finding the proper balance between the two. I believe that both our brain and our life lean toward repetition. I hypothesize a three to one ratio like the old songs—“Where oh where is little Dougie? Where oh where is little Dougie?  Where oh where is little Dougie?”… and the satisfying punch line, “Way down yonder in the Paw Paw Patch.”

So here I am in the Carmel Valley in day two of the Orff training course and where I used to pick up paper copies of homework, mark them with a red pen and return them to their authors, now I’m trying to learn about DropBox and how to correct PDF music scores on the computer screen. It could be intriguing and fun, like some new gizmos and procedures on machines can be. But mostly it’s exhausting. The old way worked fine for me and I don’t relish the idea of more screen time while others are jumping in the pool and that maddening sense of being a few steps removed from the simple act of writing a comment on a piece of paper.

The rate of change as technology shifts is simply far beyond anything humans have ever known and while exciting and novel, it also creates a climate of shifting sands that keep us perpetually off-balance. My computer is some five years old now and every day I’m finding new things I can’t do because it’s “obsolete.” Thank goodness for a few thousand year old meditation practice, a 250 year old tradition of piano mastery, a 60-year old practice of dynamic music for children.

And a few hundred thousand year habit of walking up the hills and down the valleys of this good earth, solid ground beneath my feet. Well, not really in California. But I hope for a long while to come. Now to correct some papers. With red pen in hand.

Virgin Voyage

Today was my first Facebook birthday. Quite an experience! If I’m lucky these days, I get two or three birthday cards in the mail— and one of them is from my Insurance Company! But today I sorted through some 150 birthday greetings from friends, colleagues and acquaintances far and wide. No need to guess why the disparity— the difference between seeing someone’s birthday pop up on Facebook and taking five seconds to write two words and picking out an expensive card, getting a stamp at the post office, writing a few sentences, inserting the card in the envelope, closing it, writing (or stamping) your return address, putting the stamp on it, taking it to a mailbox— well, needless to say, that’s quite a difference.

But still the impulse to send a birthday wish is a friendly one and it always feels good to know that someone is thinking (kindly) of you. I took a moment to try to visualize the particular path-crossing I had with each person and that was a good exercise. Of course, most of it had to do with music teaching (duh!), but still a pleasure to remember something about each person and the circumstance of our meeting.

Truth be told, the day itself could have been better. Woke up late, rushed around to finish packing, close out the house, run to the bank, drop in to see my Mom. She started off very lucid and after a little echo-type game similar to granddaughter Zadie (played this yesterday), got her to say the words Happy Birthday. I thanked her for everything she gave to me—including my life— played a little piano and wheeled her around for a walk, but by the end, she was getting agitated and it was time for lunch.

Then to school to pack some more, set off two alarms, figured out how to silence them before the police came and took off to pick up my great friends and colleagues, Rick and Paul at the airport. Both their planes were coming in at 1:30 and both ended up 20 minutes delayed. So I circled around four times before they finally showed up. Then a 3-hour drive to Carmel Valley to kick-off the 30^th Orff Summer Course.

After the marathon Facebook check-in, helped lead the opening session, ending with a birthday cake (thanks to James!) and 100 people singing in tune. I can’t tell you what they sang, because apparently we would then have to pay royalties on the song (have you been following the Mildred and Patty Hill case?), but —hint, hint—it was something related to the occasion.

Well, truly, no need to fuss any more about birthdays at my advanced age. And like many, would ultimately prefer a quiet dinner with a few well-chosen old friends and/or family. But it was fine to get all the shout-outs and tomorrow back to work. The real work of building community and joyful communion. And most important of all, future Facebook friends for next year’s birthday!

Ancestor-in-Training

“ What is wrong in this world can only be healed by those in the Other World. What is

   wrong in the Other World can only be healed by those in this world.”

I first heard this quote from Michael Meade, attributed to the Celtic Irish. It’s a powerful thought and I felt it deeply during the sharing of three concurrent Orff courses yesterday. The Intro. to Orff class shared some music from Zimbabwe, the Latin Orff course played some Andean music, danced a Brazilian Ciranda, played, sang and danced some Venezuelan quitiplas music and my Jazz-Orff class played and sang the Duke Ellington-Juan Tizol tune, Perdido. The Spirits were present. In many cultures, they feel this literally— that music and dance properly performed with heart and soul calls forth the Ancestors. But we all know that feeling when everything is aligned, the music hits its groove and there’s a palpable happenin’ energy in the air. We might not have the vocabulary for it, but it’s real nonetheless and we can feel it.

At the end of the sharing, I referred to this quote as I gave some closing words.

“ Here on planet Earth, we have to figure out what’s going wrong, have hard conversations, make plans to fix problems, but we can’t do it alone—the problems we face are too big and there’s a spiritual dimension to them that need the help of those invisible hands from the Other World— the muses, the angels, the ancestors, call them what you will.

And they need us too, because they no longer have bodies and voices. It’s up to us to sing for them, to act on their behalf, to right the things that they did wrong. And at the same time that we thank them for what they’ve bequeathed to us, it’s clear that they messed up big time when it came to peaceful co-existence. So much of the music we’ve enjoyed came from the muck of genocide, enslavement, brutality, hatred between people of different sizes, shapes, colors, genders. It’s up to us to walk the bridge between differences and dance together. And that’s exactly what we’ve done here. Did you feel the Ancestors smiling?

Here’s a photo of my granddaughter Zadie, the offspring of love between two people who a mere 50 years ago were not allowed by law to marry. On her behalf, we have to keep the love growing. Keep singing, dancing, playing, laughing, loving together with all kinds of folks, keep learning the hard stories of all the people and situations where people couldn’t join together like this, either by law, by ignorance, by learned hatred or by simple lack of opportunity.”

It’s weird for this guy growing up in 1950’s New Jersey to be talking about the notion of the Ancestors, but every day, I feel the truth of it. Not only a feeling of ancient beings sending their blessings down through centuries or millennia, but the newly-minted Ancestors as well, with names I know— Bessie, Louis, Ella, Billie, Duke, Dizzy, Milt, Monk and beyond. The people who we know from the fruit of their struggles that they left behind— such potent music that still charges us with its electric energy.

Today it occurred to me that all of us here in the present are Ancestors-in-Training. What are we doing now that will be worthy of remembrance then? What are bequeathing to our grandchildren beyond the silver tea service? What healing gestures are we making now that we’ll continue in a different way when we are gone? These are good questions to frame the day. These are good questions to frame a life.

100-Year Connection

My day began with a music class with 4-year olds, with 27 teachers observing and soon playing, singing and dancing with the children. Yesterday’s fountain of joy continued to flow full force. Ethan charmed me with his comment, “It sounds like suctions cups” as we chanted a name with our hands covering and uncovering our ears. He also had some of the more expressive shapes in our “One Potato” game.

From there, off to the Jewish Home and playing, singing and dancing with the elders. During my “Leaving My Mama Blues” number, some of my students walked around with xylophones offering them to the various seniors to play a hot solo on the arranged blues scale. My favorite was Doris on the glockenspiel. Her age? 104.

And so the gap between Doris and Ethan is exactly one hundred years. A whole century. Imagine that! But the effect of music was exactly the same— each note sending a love letter of joy and happiness.

When Doris was Ethan’s age, the first jazz recording was still four years away, Louis Armstrong was learning cornet in reform school, George Gershwin was a truant kid running around wild on the streets of New York. The actual music that brought such pleasure and happiness to us all this week in the jazz course was barely born. Doris is at the far end of that century of remarkable music and Ethan just beginning, but though separated by a century and a couple of miles down the road from each other, today they were both “traveling along, singing a song, side by side.”

It Runneth Over

I’m sure it’s a crime to enjoy one’s work so much. This week’s jazz course has been nothing short of extraordinary and each day I awaken to a day of joy spread out before me. A joy born from relentless hard work and willingness to grieve, because jazz demands both. And so does Orff or any worthy work, for that matter.

But to feel the way that the blues form, the old standards from the Great American Songbook, the hard-swingin’ Big Band music, played and Lindy-Hopped danced to and the hot Latin groove get into the body and move the muscles and breath and heart-rhythms around is a gift beyond words sufficient enough for gratitude. Each brings out a special combination of emotions and feelings and healings and they all spell J-O-Y. . Each piece, each game, each style a different kind of wave to “wash away the dust of this world.”

And not a private epiphany, but a communal yee-hah!, mixed with the sweat, touch, smiles and amplified energy of 27 other people in the dancing ring. And such a group! Last night went out to dinner with a large group of them and not only marveled at the intelligence, humor, good looks and plain good fun of each and every one, but also the clichéd diversity adding to the mix. Not an ethnic quota for politically correct purposes, but the real deal of shared humanity where person comes first as folks from Venezuela, China, Spain, Japan, South Africa, Germany, Brazil, U.S., young folks, old folks, men, women, black folks, white folks, straight and gay folks, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, atheist folks sat together over Thai food and had an uproariously great time. Nobody (except me in one moment of noticing) needed to accent their background, but it all came to the table and like the contrasting ingredients in the Miang Kum appetizer, made for a tasty treat, all the different flavors and colors and textures sharing the same spinach leaf and bursting into one taste on the tongue. Delicious!

My Thai iced tea stayed in my glass, but my cup runneth over. 

A Teardrop Away

In the midst of my 3^rd Jazz Course this summer and they’re all fun, moving (in all senses of that verb!) and revelatory. But I have to say that the one that I teach in my own music room, the former chapel of the church the school was before it was a school, and the present chapel of 38 years of miracles, has a special significance. And though there are marvelous people from Thailand, China, Japan, Spain, Germany, Canada and beyond attending, the fact that most are American adds a special twist when delving into the depths and heights of this miracle we call jazz.

The night before the first day, I had a profound dream about Bessie Jones of the Georgia Sea Island Singers. I was present with her and she was sharing things with me and this was a good sign. Because in her world, the whole show is about calling forth the Ancestors to rejoice with the folks and here she was in my dream world encouraging me. As my mother would say, “Imagine that!”

Once I’m in the zone of this music and the way I teach it, there’s the moment after when I start to talk and several times, I say a sentence on the edge of tears. They come unbidden, but they are welcome because I know I’m getting close to something real and authentic. I think those hint of tears are the presence of the Ancestors giving the venture their blessing and letting me know that the music is flowing with enough vitality to bring them to the window to peek in. And occasionally through the door and in moments that I can name of extraordinary grace, right into the center of the circle.

And I welcome them all.